The Most Influential Scientists in the Development of Medical Informatics (8): Jean Raoul Scherrer

REVIEW / ACTA INFORM MED. 2015 OCT 23(5): 326-327 Jean–Raoul Scherrer (1932 2002) was a pioneer in the development and deployment of clinical information systems (1, 2, 3). He received in 2000 the Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence in medical informatics. Jean-Rauol Scherrer was born in the Canton of Jura, Switzerland, in October 1932 but has lived most of his life in Geneva, Switzerland. He went to college in Fribourg, at a Jesuit School called College of Saint Michel, and followed the classical pathway ancient Greek, Latin, and strong mathematics studies. In 1959, he graduated from the Medical School of the University of Geneva, where he studied Physiology and Internal medicine. From 1967 until 1969, Professor Scherrer did postgraduate work in Medical physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, and then returned to Geneva and the Cantonal Hospital of the University of Geneva, where he began to design and build what was to become DIOGENE, the Hospital’s patient information system. The idea was to have a system that would be patient-centric. Professor Scherrer addressed the needs of the physician, and not only that, he did not encumber the physician with the need to learn the computer (1). The basic principle was : One puts orders in through the telephone. One could immediately see on the screen what he had ordered. Behind this outward façade was a bank of individuals who were keying in the information for orders, for medications, for laboratory work, and for radiology. But his objective was to see how the computer could be an enabling tool, to assist the health care provider in doing what he or she needed to do to be giving the best possible care for the patient. Starting with the mainframe-based patient-centered hospital information system DIOGENE in the 70s, Prof. Scherrer developed, implemented and evolved innovative concepts of man-machine interfaces, distributed and federated environments, leading the way with information systems that obstinately focused on the support of care providers and patients. Through a rigorous design of terminologies and ontologies, the DIOGENE data would then serve as a basis for the development of clinical research, data mining, and lead to innovative natural language processing techniques. In parallel, Prof. Scherrer supported the development of medical image management, ranging from a distributed picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) to molecular imaging of protein electrophoreses (2). Recognizing the need for improving the quality and trustworthiness of medical information on the Web, Prof. Scherrer The Most Influential Scientists in the Development of Medical Informatics (8): Jean Raoul Scherrer